Tony Blair's final insult to 'maddening' Gordon Brown

Tony Blair's final insult to 'maddening' Gordon Brown

Tony Blair's final insult to 'maddening' Gordon Brown

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Gordon Brown and Tony Blair

With friends like these: Tony Blair writes that at one stage Gordon Brown’s allies were "out in the media more or less perpetually dissing me"

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Tony Blair book A Journey

Disclosures: Tony Blair’s memoirs went on sale at a promotional half-price, £12.50, at Waterstone’s today to encourage people to buy it there

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Tony and Cherie Blair

Family affair: Tony Blair with wife Cherie on holiday — she convinced him to fight on

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Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi

Power play: Tony Blair with his Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi — who was "key to the 2012 Olympics bid" —before a meeting in Rome in 2004

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Blair family Downing Street 1997

In power: the Blair family on the doorstep of No 10 in 1997 when Labour won the election

With friends like these: Tony Blair writes that at one stage Gordon Brown’s allies were "out in the media more or less perpetually dissing me"

Tony Blair took revenge on Gordon Brown in his memoirs, trashing his record, slating him for disloyalty and even hijacking Mr Brown's proudest boast that he granted Bank of England independence.

His claims sparked a fresh burst of infighting between senior figures from the last Labour government — and threatened to envelop the frontrunners of the current leadership contest.

Mr Blair is withering about his successor, whom he calls "strange" and "maddening". But his key political message was that the party must revive the New Labour brand that Mr Brown dropped, a message also pushed recently by Lord Mandelson and which is seen as coded backing for David Miliband's leadership campaign.

Mr Blair revealed how he urged David Miliband to challenge Mr Brown in 2007, a disclosure that will undermine Mr Miliband's attempts to deny that he is the "Blairite" candidate in the Labour race.

The ex-premier's complaint about daily plotting against him by the Brown camp threatens to tarnish Ed Balls and Ed Miliband, who were both senior lieutenants to Mr Brown as Chancellor and later as PM. One MP said: "Blair probably wanted to help David Miliband but instead he has done him no favours."

Lord Prescott warned that the book's claims could foster divisions between the Miliband brothers. "The dangers are that if the divisions continue and we have a suggestion that one won't follow if the other is elected, that would be very damaging," said the former deputy leader.

Ed Miliband said Blair and Brown had been "fantastic servants" but added: "I think it is time to move on. I think frankly most members of the public will want us to turn the page."

In one of the biggest surprises, Mr Blair says he instigated the idea of letting the Bank set interest rates, a decision that is routinely recorded as the former Chancellor's finest hour.

"Gordon had come to the same conclusion, and so when I suggested it, he readily agreed," wrote Mr Blair. "I allowed Gordon to make the statement and indeed gave him every paean of praise and status in becoming the major economic figure of the government."

Mr Blair said he wanted to build up Mr Brown as "a big beast", partly to flatter him and partly to avoid tension.

"In truth, too, as with the Bank of England independence, the broad framework of economic policy was set by me," he says. This version was rejected by Mr Brown's former colleagues. Charlie Whelan, his ex-press secretary, said: "Needless to say, I won't be reading this trash. It's not true and Tony Blair knows it."

Mr Blair also blames his successor for Labour's defeat in this year's election by moving away from "New Labour". He calls Mr Brown "maddening" and says he had "emotional intelligence, zero".

His book charts their relationship from early warmth through to mutual loathing. From the 2005 election onwards, he accuses Mr Brown's allies of daily attacks to force him out.

The most astonishing is that Mr Brown tried to blackmail him during a serious row over Lord Turner's plans for pensions reform. "When Gordon came in he was in venomous mood," writes Mr Blair. "I can truthfully say it was the ugliest meeting we ever had.

"He began not by talking of pensions but by saying how damaging the loans scandal [revelations that wealthy tycoons got peerages after lending money to Labour] was, that there might have to be a National Executive inquiry and he might have to call for one. I naturally said that would be incredibly damaging and on no account must he do it.

"The temperature, already well below freezing point, went Arctic when he then said, Well it depends on this afternoon's meeting.' If I would agree to shelve the Turner proposals, he would not do it. But if I persisted, he would."

Mr Blair said he "disdained" the threat and an hour after the meetings finished Labour Party treasurer Jack Dromey made a devastating public statement that he had been kept in the dark about the loans and wanted an inquiry.

Mr Blair says he drank increasingly in his latter years at No 10 to help cope with the pressure. "I had a limit. But I was aware that it had become a prop."

Views from the bookshop queues

Avril Sawyers, 54, a retired teacher from Westminster, left, said she found it hard to understand why anyone would not buy the autobiography. She said: "He was Prime Minister for a long time. I am intrigued by the conflict he encountered and the difficulty legacy he has left behind. I want to know how he explains that."

Nick Hooper, 46, Conservative voter and stockbroker from Battersea, was the first person in the queue this morning. He said: "Tony Blair was a very impressive man. I want to find out all the secrets. After I have read it, I will decide if I am anti-war or not."

John Fielder, 76, retired aircraft draughtsman from Woking: "Looking back I don't think he did that badly. He had to make a decision after September 11."

Jeremy Fisher, 51, Conservative voter from Teddington, works as a hedge fund marketer in Piccadilly. He said: "I have been particularly interested in finding more about Blair's relationship with Brown. I am not expecting secrets, but I hope for an honest opinion of his peers."